Tag: April Fools’ Day

April 1 is a semi-official holiday in the city of my birth, Odessa, Ukraine. Humorina, as it is known has been celebrated since the 70s. The first few Humorinas were actually pretty funny and sophisticated, punctuated with elaborate pranks. It was a bit on the downswing by the time I remember it: it is very hard to come up with original Fool’s Day jokes.

In later years Humorina became a tourist event, culminating in a non-organized costumed “parade” and vigorous displays of public drunkenness. Odessa is still widely renowned as a capital of humor, but Humorina is just embarrassing these days.

Now that Soviet holidays are not celebrated anymore, non-Soviet holidays are more important than ever, thus more activity on April 1st. But as with everything, many people take it upon themselves to just get drunk and behave in most unappropriated manner. Take St. Patrick’s day, for instance. It’s now celebrated in Moscow. Take a look at these pictures of Muscovites parading in kilts and faux-Irish garb of all kinds, flashing their privates in public and getting drunk in the streets. It’d be funny, but for some reason isn’t. It all smacks of an American Wapanese and other allied culture copiers.

avaricious plug

Did you know that you can buy stocks without commission these days? In the past, you had to pay $8-30 for every order, which made buying a few shares impractical. But now there is Robinhood.
No commission, you can gamble with stocks all day long, buying as few shares as you want. A nice jolt of dopamine when your pittance goes up, adrenaline when it goes down. The catch is that they sell trading data to high frequency trading companies and maybe don't offer the best market order execution, but it is still a great deal. Get the app, check it out, and they'll give me (that's why I'm hyping it) and you a free stock (most likely a cheap one, but maybe Google or Amazon)! Happy stock market gambling!